The International School for Holocaust Studies
New Yad Vashem Publications
- Yad Vashem Studies, 37:2
- One of the Few – The Path of a Resistance Fighter and Educator, 1939-1947
- Search and Research – Lectures and Papers 15: Laying the Foundations for Holocaust Research – The Impact of Philip Friedman
Edited by Dr. David Silberklang
Yehuda Bauer opens this volume of Yad Vashem Studies with an article about Prof. Franklin Littell, to whom this volume is dedicated. The volume includes five articles on a variety of subjects and two book reviews on recent publications. Three articles present and analyze different types of documentation: Dan Michman and Sarit Shavit discuss the correspondence in the 1960s between Leni Yahil and Hannah Arendt regarding the Eichmann trial, the Jewish People, and Israel; Laszlo Karsai writes on Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szalasi’s wartime diary in 1943-44; and Claude Klein on a 1944 survivor testimony following a harrowing escape from France to Switzerland. In addition, Oula Silvennoinen’s article on Finland’s alliance with Nazi Germany, pioneers an open examination of that country’s role in the war and the Holocaust. Also included is Roni Stauber’s work on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s internal debate regarding reparations and relations with Germany, together with review articles by Natan Sznaider on Dov Schidorsky’s Burning Scrolls and Flying Letters, and Yfaat Weiss’s on Moshe Zimmerman’s Deutsche gegen Deutsche. NIS 80.
By Neomi Izhar
Chasia Bornstein-Bielicka, grew up in Grodno, Poland. During the German occupation of Poland, she enlisted in the combat resistance and was sent to Białystok on its behalf. There, masquerading as a simple Polish girl, she became a liaison with the partisans, moving ammunition, medicines, food and information to the Białystok forests. Together with other women colleagues, she gathered intelligence about the positioning of German forces, enabling the Red Army to conquer Białystok without loss. When the war ended, Chasia was chosen to represent Hashomer Hatzair in Poland at the movement’s first post-Holocaust convention in France. She then embarked on a new chapter in her life: opening the first children’s home of the Koordynacja for the Redemption of Jewish Children in Liberated Poland. For a year and a half, she migrated with the children along the route of the Bricha to Germany, France, and then to Eretz Israel. NIS 110.
Search and Research – Lectures and Papers 15: Laying the Foundations for Holocaust Research – The Impact of Philip Friedman
By Roni Stauber
From the end of World War II to the late 1950s, the most prominent and productive scholarly historian of the Holocaust was the Polish-born Jewish historian Philip Friedman (1901-1960). He founded the Central Jewish Historical Commission immediately after WWII, documented the destruction of his community, published dozens of articles, biographies, document collections and books, laying the methodological foundations for generations of researchers, continuing the brilliant traditions of Polish Jewish historiography.
Philip Friedman’s contribution to the earliest stages of Holocaust research stands out on two levels, first: documentation and the development of the research tools, and second, identifying research directions and questions and formulating historical methodologies. He saw himself as the founder of a new field of Jewish history, and as creating a memorial for those who were murdered. He began writing the story of the destruction of European Jewry as soon as the fighting died down on Polish soil (if not before) as well as addressing hitherto unresearched topics, such as the murder of the Roma and of Jehovah’s Witnesses. NIS 36.
Dr. Roni Stauber, Director of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Racism and Antisemitism at Tel Aviv University, explores Philip Friedman’s contributions and impact on the field.